Eyewitness ID Reform Litigation: NACDL v. Evanston

NACDL has been fighting in the Illinois courts since Feb. 2007 to
secure access to data and other materials related to the Chicago Police
Department’s controversial, taxpayer-funded report on lineups and
eyewitness procedures. The report sets forth highly controversial, and
widely criticized conclusions that current eyewitness procedures—those
that use traditional line ups where all suspects stand in a room
together—are more effective than new procedures used in other American
cities to reduce errors that can lead to wrongful convictions. Although
academic research has consistently found that sequential, double-blind
identification procedures substantially reduce false identifications,
the report claimed that in “real life” lineups, the traditional method
was more reliable. The Chicago, Evanston and Joliet police departments
participated in the study with the Illinois State Police ....more